Stand-up comedian James Cunningham not only has shared the comedy stage with the likes of Howie Mandel, Barbara Walters, Aretha Franklin, Arianna Huffington and President Bill Clinton, he’s also the host of the Cooking Channel’s “Eat St.” show, “a lip-smacking celebration of North America’s tastiest, messiest and most irresistible street food.” A passionate foodie (duh), Cunningham has traveled all over North America, trying amazing curbside eats. He took time out of his busy schedule to give us some insight into the latest mobile food trends across the nation, his experiences filming Season 4 of “Eat St.,” and why messy street food is the best!

Street Grindz: How’d you first get involved with the “Eat St.” show and the street food scene?

I got called up to do an audition for this show in New York City. The show wasn’t even approved yet, but we got along so well that we ended up shooting Episode 1 right there on the street during the audition. Since then, it’s just been getting better and better.

When I first started, I thought “Street food, oh yeah, sure, kebabs, hot dog trucks, whatever,” but it’s just been unbelievable. To be a part of this food revolution is amazing. I’ve never met more people who are so passionate, who love their food and what they do so much. It’s been really cool, a huge honor. We started out just reporting, but it turns out that we actually ended up influencing people to start their own food trucks, and it’s been amazing to watch it come full circle.

SG: You visited Honolulu a while back… where did you eat?

The last time we were there was for Season 2. We visited Camile’s on Wheels, Soul Patrol and Opal Thai… that guy was awesome. It was unbelievable, while they were driving to the location, they stopped off to get ingredients. We were blown away, man. That’s what you call a localvore!

SG: The 4th season of “Eat St.” started about a month ago. Any sneak previews of what we’ll see?

It’s going to be a double season, with 26 episodes and 112 food trucks, shot all over North America. I have to give a shoutout to our editors, here; they’re rock stars and are so passionate about what we do. It takes one day to shoot each truck and a week to put the segment together, so it’s a lot of work. We’ve been everywhere, though: Portland, Austin, Washington DC, Miami, Edmonton, Alberta… If we go for Season 5, we’d like to come back to Hawaii.

SG: What trends have you been seeing lately in the street food scene across the nation?

If it’s trending in the food world, it’s trending on the street. Localvore stuff is what’s going on, I think. One thing we’ve found is that every place in America has its own food truck personality. In Hawaii, your food trucks travel around a lot, whereas in Oregon or Texas, they tend to stay in one or two spots. In Portland, the food trucks are very sustainable, very localvore focused. Vancouver is really into health food, and then you go down to Los Angeles and there’s a lot of junk food and ice cream. Every city has its own trends.

SG: Would you say that mobile food (food trucks and pop-up restaurants) are getting more popular?

Absolutely, all across America. One misconception: When you talk about food trucks as a trend, I’ll tell you, food trucks are here to stay. Restaurants end up failing because it’s hard to make rent and then they’ll turn to food trucks, but that’s a difficult thing to make happen, too. A lot of people started because it looks pretty cool, but they find out it’s a lot of work to own a truck, and then it ain’t so much fun. It’s a tighter operation than a traditional restaurant, because you don’t have to worry about tables, but you have to focus more on the kitchen, work on branding and get out there on social media. It’s a really cool face to the food industry, though. We haven’t seen anything like this before.

There’s foodies, and there’s street foodies, who are on a totally different level. There’s much more of an adherence to social media among street foodies. They track their trucks on Twitter, Facebook and Yelp, and they’re way more current and cutting edge.

SG: Tell us about some memorable dishes you’ve experienced.

I have yet to meet a food truck that I don’t love. The trucks that we feature on the show go through a selection process, so I’m pretty spoiled. It’s impossible to say what my favorite is because there’s so much variety.

There is some really interesting stuff out there, though. Like the Fojol Brothers (they call themselves a “traveling culinary carnival”) in Washington DC is one of the wackiest food trucks you’ve ever seen. There’s a 5-star French restaurant on wheels where they have tables, ala carte service, and a waiter comes out and bring your food to you. There’s G’Raj Mahal in Austin, TX, just amazing Indian food. We’ve had a $27 lobster roll and eaten unbelievable food from a cart no bigger than a shopping cart… These people are nuts, they’re awesome. They’re funny and they’re happy, and they love what they do.

SG: What’s the deal with your new “Eat St.” cookbook?

What we found was that people were trying to make the dishes by watching the show, and that wasn’t working. We were getting angry emails from our fans. So we put a call out to all our trucks and asked them if they’d contribute, and we were just inundated with people offering us recipes. We went through all the recipes, actually tested a lot of them, and chose the best 125 to make a book.

SG: Why do you emphasize the “biggest, messiest” dishes around?

Because if it’s not messy, you’re not doing it right! That’s why you take street food outside, because hopefully you’re making such a mess that you couldn’t eat it inside. They call it street food because it gets all over the place!